Blanche and Buck (on ground) Parker

CHAPTER III
BUCK JOINS THE GANG

In March of 1933 Clyde's brother Buck was paroled from the Huntsville prison. Buck with his bride, Blanche quickly joined up with Clyde in Joplin, Missouri. Clyde and Bonnie decided to take a desperately needed vacation after their reunion with Buck and Blanche. They had plenty of money and believed Joplin would be safe for them so they rented a well-furnished apartment over a double-garage in the quiet Freeman Park area. Here they hoped to relax for a couple of months before moving on.

Neighbors watched them move in, were alarmed when they spotted a couple of the young men carry in all the guns. Rumors flew and the police were called after their activities drew attention. The police kept watch and noted that one of two cars, a green 1932 Ford Sedan left the premises on the night a local bank robbery committed by two men (fitting the Barrows' description) "and a woman." They discovered that the car had been stolen near Topeka, Kansas, several weeks back.

On April 13, Joplin officers parked in front of the garage doors to block the two cars inside. Bonnie was cooking lunch and Clyde was reading the newspaper when he thought he heard something below the window and he got up and peeked out the window. He warned the others that the cops were there and they started shooting. County policeman Wesley Harriman and detective Harry McGinnis fell, in direct line of fire. The other officers begin firing at the upper windows. Buck grabbed his shotgun and Bonnie grabbed a revolver and they also started firing. Blanche panicked and ran screaming from room to room.

. The gang slipped downstairs through an interior staircase, while the officers continued to shoot up the upstairs. Blanche panicked and ran out the back door to the lawn. Clyde grabbed Buck and pushed him into the back seat of the Ford. Clyde climbed into the drivers seat while the rest piled into the car. When the shots outside slowed down he started the car and floor boarded it. The Ford burst through the doors, the government's car and the policemen gathered around it. He stopped down the street just long enough to pick up Blanche who was still running and screaming.

Inside the apartment, police found photographs of the couple taken with a new box Kodak cameras. The mystery of the identity of the new members of the gang was revealed when they found Bucks' parole papers in Blanche's purse.

The gang holed up in a country motel near Amarillo. Joplin had been too close of a call and they realized that while they learned from their mistakes, so did the police. Clyde had had some trouble clearing Joplin, having taken a few dead ends. From now on he would contrive an escape route ahead of time. And although they changed cars and license plates quite frequently, he resolved to do it even more frequently. He accounted that the stolen car he had driven in Joplin might have led the police to them.

In Ruston, Texas, in early May, they stole a Chevrolet from in front of boarding house. As in Temple, the owner, H. Darby Dillard saw them. He convinced another boarder, Sophie Stone, to loan him her auto to pursue the thieves. She agreed and got in the car with him. Dillard spied his car a few blocks away at a stoplight. W. D. was driving the stolen car and Dillard didn't realize the rest of gang was in the car behind him. At a pre-arranged location, W. D. stopped the car and got out. Dillard was ready to when he noticed Clyde's car and guns pull in behind him. Clyde forced the couple into the back of Dillard's own car, between Buck and W. D.

. They drove all night, stopping only to buy some hamburgers, which they shared with Dillard and Sophie. They dropped them off miles from his home the next morning, but they slipped them some money to get home on.

Near Wellington, the gang didn't notice the warning signs and Clyde drove into a. ravine where the bridge had been removed. Spying the chasm too late. One of Bonnie's thighs was badly burned when the car caught fire and exploded.. The skin near her knee was severed to expose bone. A farmer, Tom Pritchard, had been working nearby rushed over to lend a hand. He helped and to help carry Bonnie to his house and put her in their bed. After he noticed revolvers stuck in the men's belts, he realized that Bonnie, looked like the girl on the wanted poster in the town.

Mrs. Pritchard helped by cleaning the wound and applying iodine, but Clyde that Bonnie needed a doctor real bad. When Clyde came out of the bedroom, he asked W. D., where everyone had gone. W. D. said Buck and Blanche went back to dig the car from the ditch and Pritchard out back somewhere. Clyde quickly searched the property, but couldn't find Pritchard anywhere. He had went to a neighbor's house to call the police. The gang loaded into the Prichard's care and left immediately.

The gang drove across the Arkansas border and went to the Twin Cities Tourist Camp to hide until Bonnie improved. In pain and agony, Bonnie cried for her mother as Clyde tended to her. Clyde decided that a family member with her would help and called Bonnie's sister, Jean to come and help. Bonnie began to get better with Jean, Clyde and Blanche tending to her.

In the meantime, Buck and W.D. killed officer Henry Humphreys following a bank and grocery store robbery in Fayetteville. Bonnie was in luck when the next car they stole was a doctor's and had his black bag in the back seat brimmed with pain killers, wound treatments, gauze, powders and a variety of medications. With the bag, Clyde and Blanche kept Bonnie's leg from getting infected.

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